Had no time to play, just looked at their support site. They are planning to introduce new content: new crafting school for Dragons. Now they would be able to master the art of Crystal Shaping. To make things more fun, new tier 5 (lvl.60-80) dungeon is introduced for experienced Dragons.

Aradoth and Tazoon regions will be revamped (just please, Vitrtrium, revamp, not downgrade...). New enemies are marching towards Istaria - new evil cult arises and some evil bands are marching to threaten Tazoon, magnificient town and former capital of the Empire.

They do promise new NPCs locations, new quests as well as return of the Autumn festival.

All of this really sound good. I do love quests, even if they are "kill X bears" or "gather Y copper". I would like to see some regions made a bit more player-friendly. Example: oak forest near Heather, it just streches too far and is difficult to gather oak here.

Lotro

Back to the future...i.e. questing. Asked for help in two quests and one player responded. However, he had to go "to talk to one person" and later kicked me out of group ("fellowship"). I did not understand why and retreated, lately declining his asks to join fellowship. Ironically, I did that quest myself. Went very cautiously, killing all enemies in sight, just picking them by one. Finally - my captain, hiding in the ruins. Killed him and his bodyguard. Quest was complete, teleported (cooldown: 1 hour...) to town and finished the quest. Quest to poison wolf food and kill wolf breeder went not so good. Some hero went to kill brigands and I used moment to poison food (6 pieces). I failed to find that evil guy and did not look at lotro-wiki.com.

Took some other quests which proved a bit strange for me. One was running from one hobbit to another and I really did not care what they are trying to tell. Person A tells to run to person B, person B to person C, then person C to person A...and so without end. Not cool at all, even if there was a story behind it. It was just for xp. Strange things were: I was to march in a safe territory and quest was marked for lvl.14. Why 14, when the biggest monster was lvl. 12? No idea. The only good idea was to visit local Brigands camp, kill brigands (optional) and get some "Stolen Watyer-Pipe". Killed, got, returned. Besides, found one statue needed for Deed - good too.

Another quest line was an interesting one: to defend some NPC from brigands. It was a fellowship quest (and I was notified by pop-up window), but I decided to be an allmighty-Rambo like-hero. Was killed, NPC was killed, quest was failed. Then I helped (without being asked) othewr players who did that quest. It was just for fun to use AoE abilities, killing brigands and especially archers. One player thanked me and that was possibly greatest reward.

Then my Guild member arrived to help me and the quest part was finished. One quest remains unsolved, since it requires killing lvl.13 spiders and I am still lvl.12.

Impressions: while some quests are good, others tend to be "run from person A to person B" and therefore - not interesting. Other quests indicate higher level than is required in reality. Overall I enjoy quests - as one wise person said, most xp is gained through quests, not grinding. One must grind only for deeds/traits ant Turbine points (I already have 40 of them...only some 2540 to go for Mora expansion...).Gameplay was interesting, I really enjoyed NPCs greeting me after I finished all their quests, like "I enjoy calling you my friend" or like "You did well with those brigands". No annoying pop-ups about store were noticed as well as no reference like "this Heavy Non Cool Noob armor may be changed to Light Shiny Cool Non Noob armor for only 99,99$".

And so the day ended. I got satisfied from news about my favourite Istaria and gameplay from immersive Lotro. Kudos, Vitrrium, kudos, Turbine. Just must gather all will to play Istaria and reach Mason lvl. 100./

lol try running Bree tour quest 2 or 3 times. For TP's I suggest making use of your second character slot. This toon can be made to support your main toons crafting as all the groupings have holes leaving the character needing other crafters to fill the lack. As that's a good enough reason for using the second slot the fact that this toon can also be grinded for TP's that pool in your Turbine account is a bonus. Crafting can be VERY helpful early in the game. IMO it's almost a sin for a Hunter with Forrester not to go for a yew bow ASAP. Especally with kinship or other support the treck for yew is pretty simple and the DPS is devastating in early combat. Much of the crafting is like this with even simple items often superiour to anything available via merchents for the level. And don't forget everyone gets 3 ingredent packs for completing crafting quests. You save a lot of coin by not having to ever buy equipment you can have crafted and selling all the quest equipment. I started picking rewards strictly by the highest sell price in such cases.